Burying mistakes

Sunday

Jul 6, 2014 at 5:15 PM

Our founders boldly asserted in the Declaration of Independence that our nation should exist because the “Laws of Nature and Nature's God” entitle it to exist. They further held that the God who authored these natural laws endowed everyone with certain, self-evident rights.

John Ragan/Guest Column

Our founders boldly asserted in the Declaration of Independence that our nation should exist because the “Laws of Nature and Nature's God” entitle it to exist. They further held that the God who authored these natural laws endowed everyone with certain, self-evident rights.By these concepts, every individual has the same God-given equality before the law. There can be none with special, legal “privileges” such as royalty or aristocracy. Likewise, there can be no serfs inherently lacking certain rights.An even more radical concept in that document is that government exists to protect these God-given rights. Furthermore, our nation's founding document maintains that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed and thus are accountable to them.In other words, our founders insisted that government must answer to its citizens, not the other way round. However, events recently in the popular press have called this concept into question.It seems that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has begun to suspiciously take on the characteristics of King George's tax collectors. Apparently, IRS executives aristocratically think that they can arbitrarily single out certain citizen groups as lacking equal rights under the law. How dare those unruly bands of “serfs” call themselves a “Tea Party” and challenge their aristocratic “betters” in government? Furthermore, these same imperious bureaucrats also presumably think that they do not have to answer to anyone for it. Don't believe me? Just use any Internet search engine and look up “Lois Lerner,” “lost emails” and “Congressional Hearings.”Ironically, on the IRS website, a government official explains that taxpayers must keep pristine, electronic records related to taxes for as long as three years. Astoundingly, the Commissioner of the IRS asserted before Congress that his organization had no need to keep their electronic records longer than six months.Moreover, he took umbrage that anyone would dare question his explanations. How could anyone refuse to believe that no less than six computers' hard drives mysteriously crashed nearly simultaneously without any backup? Amazingly, these irrecoverable crashes seemed to have occurred concurrently with the arrival of a Congressional subpoena. Do you think that the IRS would accept that kind of “dog-ate-my-homework” excuse from any taxpayer?It seems that there is one standard for the taxpaying “serfs,” formerly called citizens, and a different one for the “aristocracy” of the IRS. Does this sound like a “just power” granted to government by the governed?Not to worry, though ... this IRS “aristocracy” is the same one that administers the Affordable Care Act, popularly called “Obamacare.” If another hard drive mysteriously crashes, they will not have to explain to Congress or the American people. They can just bury the mistakes. Think about it when it comes time to cast your ballot!State Rep. John D. Ragan, a Republican from Oak Ridge, represents the 33rd District in the Tennessee House of Representatives